What crowd is this? What have we here? We must not pass it by;
A telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky…
– William Wordsworth, 1806
While I was working on my master’s degree at Queen’s University in Canada some 42 years ago, I came across this poem, loved it, and decided to include it in my thesis.… Continue reading.
We all got a special and thoroughly delightful present early on Christmas morning. Although I did not set my alarm, Wendee did get up around 5 am. I turned on our television set, and what I saw 15 minutes later was the most thrilling space view since 1969, when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon.… Continue reading.
“A Dragon Lives forever, but not so girls and boys.”
Three quarters of a century ago, during the Second World War, the famous Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley, along with Charles Federer, founding editor of Sky and Telescope Magazine, launched an association of astronomy clubs across the United States.… Continue reading.
Agreed, this seems like an awfully daffy title for an astronomy article. But there is method to the madness, and there is a story. During the late summer of 2019 there was a star party in southeast Arizona that featured a dark sky and five perfect back-to-back nights.… Continue reading.
A few weeks ago, I received a message from Cameron Gillis, an amateur astronomer who wrote that he liked galaxies. Just for fun, I decided to take the opposite approach, a philosophical reversal. If he likes galaxies, then I hate them.… Continue reading.
Gravity is one of the most fundamental things in physics. Everything and everyone has gravity. The more massive something is, the more gravity it has. When you jump into the air, Earth’s gravity brings you back down.… Continue reading.
The night before last, a comet named Palomar (actually known as C (for comet)/ 2020 T2 Palomar) was gliding near one of the most beautiful clusters of stars in the entire sky. It was parading about at about magnitude 11, which means that for my oldish eyes, it would be too faint to see.… Continue reading.